Follow the Echoes // Ryan Lindgren, New York Rangers

Chapter Four

Sydney picks up the club she retrieved from the array of golf clubs on display by the monitor, examining the object carefully. She has not been in Top Golf nor swung a golf club in a while.

"Do you want to play the basic one or the Angry Bird one?" Jade asks as she types her information into the monitor.

The younger woman looks at her sister-in-law, pondering over the question. She has not played either option since she started law school so she is going to have to make this experience count.

"Angry Birds, ma'am!"

Jade chuckles as she completes the registration process on the monitor. She gestures Sydney over to her spot to do the same. Clutching onto the club tightly, Sydney walks over to take Jade's spot in front of the screen and begins putting her information in.

Sydney had been wandering around the penthouse, doing absolutely nothing all day other than run errands with Jade. She can tell Jade felt bad for her and decided to plan a fun daytime activity for them. Since Jade had nothing going on today, she invited Sydney, Mika Zibanejad, and Mika's fiancée out to play a few competitive rounds of golf.

Sydney tried to do more to avoid Jade's sympathy and her growing need to entertain the younger woman all the time. She had tried to apply to job listings she found on the New York Bar Association's website as well as Indeed, but she has gotten no bites so far. Not surprisingly, a law school dropout's job prospects are a bit slim.

"Lady Kreids!"

Sydney hears Mika Zibanejad's familiar voice address Jade as she types her phone number on the screen. A smile forms on her face as she turns to greet her brother's best friend. However, the moment she turns around, her breath hitches in her throat. Her dark eyes widen at the sight of him.

"Hey Mika!" Jade walks over to the Swede to hug him tightly.

Sydney is not paying mind to Mika or anything else occurring in their bay. She finds herself in the midst of her shock as she is locked in eye contact with Adam Fox. Her heart is beating uncontrollably, and she can feel blood rush to her head. She had not been prepared to see him ever again, let alone at the outing today. Sydney is doing everything she can to fight the emotion welling up in her chest and the pit of her stomach.

It had taken Sydney longer than she had cared to admit getting over the superstar defenseman. She had buried herself in work and distractions in the form of the opposite sex to make her forget that she was ever in love with the man in front of her. Now that she is face to face with him, she finds herself wrestling with the feeling of affection and adoration she once felt for him.

"I thought you were bringing Kreids instead of little Kreids," Mika smiles at Jade apologetically, noticing the tension between Sydney and Adam.

Jade curses herself for the poor planning on her part. She did not expect Mika to bring a group of his teammates to their outing today, especially Adam. She specifically invited Mika and his fiancée, Jen.

"Where's Jen?" Jade asks.

"Sorry about that," Mika scratches the back of his head sheepishly, "Jen couldn't make it so I thought I'd bring these fellas."

Since Adam is still locked in gaze with Sydney, Jade turns her attention to Alexis Lafreniere and Ryan Lindgren. The former did not meet Sydney the last time she was in New York and is looking at Jade and Mika with confusion in his eyes.

"Hey guys," Jade greets.

"Am I missing something?" Alexis glances between Jade, Mika, and Ryan for answers.

Ryan rolls his eyes and turns to Jade.

"I didn't know you were bringing the she-devil with you."

Sydney snaps out of her stupor at the sound of Ryan's voice. She turns to glare at him.

"It's not like I tagged along because I wanted you to show up and ruin my day," Sydney responds.

Ryan opens his mouth to retort but Adam immediately steps between the two. He turns to Ryan with a look of warning, which immediately shuts the blonde up.

"Hi, I'm Sydney Kreider. Most people call me Syd," Sydney turns to the red-haired man standing beside Mika, noting that she has no idea who he is.

Alexis grins at her awkwardly, extending a hand out for her to shake.

"So you're Kreids's sister," the red-haired hockey player comments, "Alexis Lafreniere."

Sydney smiles at him politely and pulls away from the handshake. She turns to Mika, immediately pulling him into a tight hug. She had not seen him since she left New York to attend law school. Mika and Sydney used to be close. Mika always had her back and supported her in her endeavors, and Sydney felt like she could always count on him. He also loved teasing her and messing with her like an older brother would. Sydney regrettably lost touch with him after she moved to Berkeley.

"So happy to see you, baby Kreids," Mika greets.

"How the fuck have you been, Meeks?"

The two pull away from each other, grinning. Sydney looked forward to finally seeing Mika after not seeing him for over a year. Even though he showed up to their bay with three unexpected guests, this does not take away the excitement she feels.

"Not too bad," he responds, "even though I expected to see your brother today, I'm definitely thankful I get to see you instead."

Sydney laughs, lightly shoving his upper arm. She knows deep down the Swedish hockey star is disappointed not to see her brother. As far as she is concerned, the two have always been thick as thieves. They literally do everything together.

"Unfortunately, Chris wanted to finish the book he was reading and has no interest in golfing with us," Sydney shrugs.

Mika rolls his eyes.

"Yeah, he's been raving about that book all week. He is spending every waking moment of his off time on that sucker. Well, his loss! He won't get to see me kick his sister's ass at Angry Birds," Mika cranes his neck to the monitor to decipher the format of the match they are playing.

His dark eyes shift back to her quizzically, as if asking her what mode of game they are playing.

"I insisted on Angry Birds, so once you all put your shit in, we're gonna start. Angry Birds is non-negotiable," Sydney responds firmly.

Mika beams.

"Good!"

He excuses himself to put his information in the monitor eagerly. In the meantime, Sydney avoids turning her head to the direction of where Adam is standing with Ryan. The defensive pair are chatting among themselves and seem to be immersed in their conversation. Sydney cannot decipher a single word they are saying to each other and the last thing she wants to do is walk over to them to find out. It took so long for her to get over Adam. There is no way she is getting herself involved again. If she gets drawn in again, there is no guarantee she will recover this time.

Meanwhile, Jade is engaged in conversation with Alexis. Sydney heard the redhead's name for a while before she left. He was the Rangers' first overall pick in 2020 and started playing for the team shortly after. Everyone was raving about him, but she had never met him before she left. It is interesting to finally meet the young player after hearing so much about him. Sydney considers walking over to join the conversation but Mika interrupts by walking over to them.

"Laf, you're up!" Mika pats the younger man on the shoulder.

Alexis picks a club from the assortment by the monitor, examines it, and approaches the machine to retrieve a ball. Sydney finds a seat on the couch as Alexis sets himself up on the grass. Jade sits down next to her, giving her shoulder a few reassuring squeezes. The older woman must know how hard it is for her to see her ex-boyfriend again after a year and a half. Sydney understands that this is all an accident and resulted from Jade and Mika's failure to communicate with each other. Nevertheless, this is nothing she cannot handle. She is strong enough to be in Adam's presence without losing her sanity. She is over him. There is no way she is going to let this outing affect her.

"Do you want to leave?" Jade whispers quietly in her ear.

Sydney shakes her head and gives her sister-in-law a reassuring smile. Jade's lips form in a thin line as she ponders over the younger woman's answer.

"God I hate Angry Birds," she hears Ryan mumble out loud.

Sydney rolls her eyes, turning away from Jade to look at Ryan. Of course he hates Angry Birds, Sydney thinks to herself, he hates fun.

"You snooze, you lose, Lindgren," Sydney retorts.

Ryan stares at her and blinks. It is hard to read his expression. She knows he is trying to get a rise out of her by making the comment about playing Angry Birds mode, but now that he has gotten the response he wanted from her, he does not even react.

Adam, who is seated beside Ryan, opens his mouth to try to stop Ryan from giving a response. The defenseman is used to this by now. Ryan and Sydney will always try to provoke each other unless he steps in. Most of the time, his efforts go to waste. Nevertheless, Adam has never stopped trying. He hates witnessing conflict between the two.

Before Ryan can provide a response, Adam cuts in.

"Alright, Lindy, you did well last time when Bread insisted on playing Angry Birds. I think it'll be fun."

Sydney turns to Adam and smiles at him appreciatively. He gives her a small smile back, nodding calmly. Sydney tries to keep her cool when she feels her heart flutter a little.

"Fine, I don't need to play regular mode to kick your ass anyway, Kreider," Ryan smirks at Sydney tauntingly.

The raven-haired beauty glares at the blonde defenseman and accepts his challenge.

"We'll see about that," Sydney grumbles and turns to Alexis, who is wrapping up his third swing for the round, "hey Lafreniere, I'm going next!"

Mika turns to Jade and the two exchange alarming glances. They have been around Sydney and Ryan enough to know what is about to happen. They know that this outing is not going to end in fun and games. This is the Ryan and Sydney show now.

"You probably have more downtime than I do to practice your swings. Perks of being unemployed, eh?"

"Lindy!" Adam scolds as he shoves his defensive partner.

"Got a lot of experience golfing in the summer, huh?" Sydney claps back.

The guys all stare at her in shock at her jab towards the whole team and their playoff experience. Even though they know her comment was specifically designed to attack Ryan, it affects them all just the same.

Sydney ignores them, getting up from her seat to prepare for her first swing. She acknowledges Alexis as he walks past her to take his seat. Sydney double checks the monitor to make sure that Alexis arranged for her to play after him. When she sees her name on the screen, she releases a deep breath and flexes her arms. It's showtime. Sydney moves her club in front of the motion censor for a golf ball and waits patiently for the object to roll out of the device. She leans down to pick up the ball and sets the object up on the grass.

Eyeing the layout of the architecture on the monitor, Sydney adjusts her position to prepare for her swing in accordance to the placement of the blocks she has to knock out. Once Sydney has an idea of where the ball needs to hit, she takes a swing at the ball and prays for the ball to travel to the direction she had intended. She almost sighs in relief when the trajectory of the golf ball resembles what she had intended in her head.

She can hear cheering behind her, and she knows for sure the source of the cheers is not Ryan. Sydney turns to look at the monitor to see that she had knocked out a significant portion of the architecture during this round. I have two more swings to finish this up, Sydney moves her club in front of the motion censor to retrieve her second ball.

Suck it, Lindgren.

Sydney's second swing is not as glorious as her first swing, but she manages to knock over some of the bricks. She can hear more clapping and cheers in the background.

One more.

Her third swing did the trick. The golf ball traveled exactly where Sydney needed, leaving nothing left for her to knock out. She grins victoriously as she glances at her score on the screen and returns to her seat next to Jade. Ryan scowls at her, getting up to take his turn.

"You got lucky," he murmurs to her as he retrieves a golf club.

"We'll see about that," Sydney beams at him tauntingly.

Jade places a hand on her shoulder as if to stop her from chirping the blonde defenseman. The older woman knows how much Sydney loves getting a rise out of Ryan, but this has to stop.

As Ryan is preparing himself for the first swing, Mika pulls Jade into conversation. Alexis, who is seated between Sydney and Adam, is on his phone and paying no mind to the game in front of him. This leaves Sydney with Adam. She smiles at him awkwardly, trying to find a way to look away from him without being too obvious. He smiles back at her.

"So... things have been good since you got back?" Adam asks, shifting awkwardly.

Sydney nods.

"Yeah, just a bit bored, but I'm trying to figure it out."

"I'm sorry to hear that law school did not work out," he responds, "I know you will figure out what you are meant to do."

"It does feel like I am coming back with my tail tucked between my legs," Sydney admits.

She was so confident and adamant that law school was her calling. Sydney had her whole future planned out at that point. She was going to go to law school at Columbia, maybe gear her focus towards corporate law, and eventually work in big law in a top firm in Manhattan. Adam knew how determined she was to make a name for herself and chase after her ambitious dreams.

Instead, she broke up with Adam to move to Berkeley, and came back after trying law school out for a year and a half. Things certainly did not go according to plan and being back here, face to face with Adam, makes her feel like everything she did to get to this point had been pointless.

"No, don't say that!" Adam shakes his head, "you were brave to take the leap."

"Did you think I was at the time?"

"What do you mean?"

"Was I brave for dropping plans to attend Columbia and moving across the country, or was I a coward for what I did?"

"Syd..."

"Foxy, your turn!" Ryan, who is done with his turn, sits down between the two to end their conversation abruptly.

Adam takes the golf club from Ryan's grip to take his turn. In the meantime, Ryan shrugs at the raven-haired woman.

"I guess all that free time has paid off," he says nonchalantly.

Sydney realizes that Ryan did not do as well as she did during his first round. She tries to take pride and relish in that victory, but all she can think about is the conversation she just had with Adam. When Sydney started law school, she wondered how Adam felt about her decision. Was he relieved or was he hurt?

It never crossed her mind that he thought she was brave for making such a rash decision.

She wishes Ryan had not interrupted. An answer from Adam would have provided her with some closure. However, Ryan Lindgren exists in their lives, and she is not allowed to have nice things.

"Do you always make excuses for your failures?" Sydney fires back.

"No, I'm just stating a fact. I'm too busy putting time in for my career to practice my golf swings for Angry Birds mode. You do nothing important all day."

"I thought you had plenty of opportunities to golf after all those early round playoff exits?"

Ryan scoffs.

"Real original," he says before adding, "you already made that joke earlier."

However, Sydney is not done.

"And I will have you know, I have not touched a golf club since I started law school and I'm pretty sure I just heard Adam mention a time when you played Angry Birds with Panarin. How long ago was that by the way?"

Ryan opens his mouth to respond but Sydney cuts him off.

"Chris also mentioned that the team likes to come out here to decompress before a big road trip, so do not even think about lying to me."

Ryan rolls his eyes.

"Ok, Sherlock, are you done talking now?"

Sydney opens her mouth for yet another retort, but she feels her phone vibrate in her pocket to alert her that she has received an email. Completely disregarding her conversation with Ryan, Sydney pulls out her phone to review the email she just got. Her eyes widen in excitement as she takes in the contents of the email.

"Holy shit," Sydney breathes out.

"What?" Ryan stares her down expectantly.

"I just got a job offer..."

"Oh yeah? From a law firm?"

"Hell no! I don't want to do that shit anymore, that's why I quit law school," Sydney shakes her head and looks up from her phone to make eye contact with the blonde defenseman.

"Then who did you get a job offer from?"

Sydney smiles.

"From a pro bono legal clinic, Bridge to Justice. I'm being offered a position as an intern for their fundraising committee."

Bridge to Justice, Ryan is pretty sure this is the same organization he just agreed to work with this season. He reverts her attention back to Sydney but she is already excitedly telling Jade and Mika the news.

Guess I'll be seeing you, SK.